I broadly agree with you. That being said, I don't think it's fair at this point to equate what's going on on the left to what's going on on the right. They are leagues apart.
That's not to say that the same thing couldn't happen on the left or that the people on the left in some way are superior. Quite the opposite. I think the people on the left are just as susceptible to the type of effects happening on the right.
I often wonder what would have happened if Trump had run as a democrat in 2016 instead talking about being pro-choice and how we need to get medicare for all etc. If he had run against someone like Ted Cruz, I would not be surprised if a lot of the left (myself included) had voted for Trump and excused all his talk as "locker room talk" or "speaking his mind" just like the right ultimately did. It may be nothing more than an accident that the right was the side that "fell victim" to his antics.
This brings me to a serious worry of mine. A lot of people are talking about how Trump is too incompetent to successfully install himself as a dictator, but that the next person may be much more competent. These "warnings" are directed toward the right. However, there's nothing that prevents the next dictator wanna-be from being on the left, and the left needs to be equally vigilant.
I'm not necessarily saying that it could have happened, I'm mostly exploring how it would have played out if it had.
The left seems to suggest that only an immoral (or possibly dumb) person could possibly vote for Trump and that we need to put country over politics. That's easy to say when putting country over politics happens to agree with your own political views. I don't know if many democrats would have voted for a person like Ted Cruz in 2016 if Trump (or someone like him) had been the democratic candidate. I can almost certainly say that I personally would have played the same games of semantics that the right was playing then (and still are).
There's a lot of "right-shaming" going on when I suspect that it's just an accident that the right was the side that fell for it this time. The left should be extra vigilant to make sure that we don't fall for it ourselves.
Yeah, I was a little surprised at the assumption that Trump would be feasible in a Democratic Primary. Or, a larger segment of the party wanted to support people like Sanders and Warren for a specific ideological reasons. Plus, a lot of Democrats felt Biden’s views and past behaviour made him unsuitable to be president. It’s hard to imagine those same factions in the party nominating Trump.
I’m not an American though, so I may be missing some context.
The left had something similar in 2016, in Bernie Sanders. The differences were that he didn't have the locker room talk (that I know of), and he didn't have the dictatorial tendencies (that I know of). But he was an insurgent from outside the party (he wasn't a Democrat, though he may have joined the party in 2016 for his run). In the same way, Trump wasn't really a Republican. (He did join the party, but somewhat recently.) Yes, I realize that this is degenerating into No True Scotsman, but both were outsiders who tried to hijack the parties. Trump succeeded, Bernie failed because the Democratic Party manipulated things and the Republican Party let things happen.
The groundwork has been laid, on both sides. And the Democrats got raked over the coals for tilting the scales against Bernie, so they might not do it next time.
I guess while he was an outsider I'm not sure that he would have proven to be authoritarian in the way Trump is. I'm mostly worried about our democracy and not necessarily so much about policies.
I agree; I specifically said that I had no basis for claiming that he was authoritarian. The rest is quite similar, though - the outside insurgency and the populism. So the playbook is there for it to happen on the left as well as on the right.
That's not to say that the same thing couldn't happen on the left or that the people on the left in some way are superior. Quite the opposite. I think the people on the left are just as susceptible to the type of effects happening on the right.
I often wonder what would have happened if Trump had run as a democrat in 2016 instead talking about being pro-choice and how we need to get medicare for all etc. If he had run against someone like Ted Cruz, I would not be surprised if a lot of the left (myself included) had voted for Trump and excused all his talk as "locker room talk" or "speaking his mind" just like the right ultimately did. It may be nothing more than an accident that the right was the side that "fell victim" to his antics.
This brings me to a serious worry of mine. A lot of people are talking about how Trump is too incompetent to successfully install himself as a dictator, but that the next person may be much more competent. These "warnings" are directed toward the right. However, there's nothing that prevents the next dictator wanna-be from being on the left, and the left needs to be equally vigilant.